oops cleaned some silver coins

[smokeydog]

well i found a few coins 1928 liberty quarter, 1903 dime 1883 nickle and afew wheaties
within my first couple hours on my new MXT.
but anyway i was talking to a friend, he told me his grandpa restores old coins.
so i asked him howto clean the coins.
and tried it myself i was amazed how nice they looked"to me"
so later on i took them to a coin shop.
the woman that helped me thought they looked good.
until i told her i cleaned them. then all the sudden the price of the coins droped to 1/3 of what she origonaly said they were worth. she told me not to clean any coins, i am just currious how true this is?
oops my bad for cleaning them, now its time to find more

 

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[stoney56]

Goes to show don't volunteer nutin'. They were cleaned properly or she would have noticed. See-can teach an ole dog new tricks. HH

 

[Orinery]

Well there are reasons not to clean coins a dirty coin that has good details is better than a clean one that is missing the details. But it sounds to me like she was just looking for any reason to talk you down on price. Orin

 

[ranger ricky]

i found a couple of dimes yesterday, not old but just almost black, I have tried one method of letting metal items set in olive oil for weeks without much luck if you were to want to bring the shine back on the dimes what would u suggest, at this point with my small collection, Im kind of inclined to leave my coins like they are because none are very old the state their in now reminds me of the find

 

[Copper]

the woman that helped me thought they looked good.
until i told her i cleaned them. then all the sudden the price of the coins droped to 1/3 of what she origonaly said they were worth. she told me not to clean any coins, i am just currious how true this is?
oops my bad for cleaning them, now its time to find more

In the future, I'd recommend that you only clean coins that are very severely corroded. I mean they're so bad you can hardly tell if there is any detail. Don't clean those that are blackened or look dirty with shadowed areas. These can actually be worth more than cleaned coins. Many collectors today are favoring these discolored or "aged" coins. This "aged" look is the coins story.

Put your coins on ebay with the minimum you'll accept and you should do well.

Have fun and keep finding those stories?

 

[cedarratt]

If they arent clean they will get a patina on them that makes them worth more because it shows that they have not been touch ever or in a long time.

 

[smokeydog]

Thank's you all, they were my first good finds. & didn't know any better
i cleaned them by soaking them in phnamonia then i pinched bakeingsoada on them "not rubbing"
seems to work nice, but will not do it anymore.
"I would never sell what i find"

 

[PAmike]

If it does not damage the coin and gives it a good silver shine I would keep doing it, and keep my mouth shut so the coind dealers don't know.

Take those coins to another deales and let them think what they want to.

mike

 

[Jason in TN]

Smokeydog what is phnamonia and where did you get it. I would like to try it on a couple of coins just to see what it will do. More details please. How long did you soak and did you just rinse the baking soda off.

 

[jeff of pa]

I think he means NUMONIA I don't know how to spell it either :lol or is it Amonia ?

 

[Mona Lisa]

I think he meant ammonia. It's pretty corrosive. I use that to get burnt on gunk off of pots and pans. I never thought of using it on coins.

 

[Jason in TN]

May have to give it a try on a couple of coins thanks.

 

[smokeydog]

"Oops" i meant Ammonia "all purpose cleaner"
I just let them soak for a few hours & pull them out & put baking soda on both sides and pinch straight down working the whole coin. it's kind of pasty at first i keep working till it becomes dry. then i rinse in water, and put it back in the Ammonia and repeat.
I was doing this a few times a day till i was satisfied. There's still tarnish in the hard to reach spots. it worked really good on the nickle. I don't recommend doing this on anything valuable.